Plants grow but planters do not, at least until this self-expanding pot came along, forever obviating the need for repotting. GROWTH has a three-stage lifecycle, starting out small and becoming quite large as the roots of the plant it supports expand and push out its sides.

Like a blooming flower or unfolding leave, the vessel itself transforms from a seed stage until a fully-formed shape, transitioning between a set of compact triangles, a balloon-like interstitial phase and a final form that once again looks like a pot but much larger.

The initial phase is even smaller that it appears, and the final larger, since the triangles start out forming denser sides then become thinner in their biggest iteration. Designed by Studio Ayaskan, GROWTH addresses a timeless problem when it comes to indoor gardening: the need to remove and replant trees and other growing plants at various stages along the way.

The post No Need to Repot: Origami Planter Expands as Plants Grow first appeared on Gajitz.

Printed instead of planted, this strange concoction combines elements of gardening, gourmet dining and 3D printing technologies in a fresh new way.

Created by food designer Chloé Rutzerveld, Edible Growth involves an exterior casing of edible soil (growth medium) laced with mushroom seeds.

Once printed, the consumer waits while the seeds start to grow up and out through holes around load-bearing supports printed into the structure of the case. The finished food is ready to eat a few days later.

While many food printing experiments and ideas revolve around the concept of creating a finished product on the spot, this one is a unique sort of hybrid – it still requires patience, like (but less than) planted edibles would.

The post Living 3D-Printed Food: Output Seeds in Soil, Grow & Eat first appeared on Gajitz.

A company in Holland has deployed a radical new system for generating clean, green, renewable energy from plant life in order to power everything from phone charging stations and WiFi hotspots to city street lamps and more.

The technology of Plant-E works on the same principle as a potato battery but much more efficiently and, naturally, at a much larger scale, harvesting power without harming plants via byproducts of photosynthesis.

For the Netherlands streetlight projects, “Plant-e’s electricity generation process involves plants growing in two-square-foot plastic containers. Plants undergo photosynthesis, essential turning solar power into sugars. As they grow, plants always produce more sugars than they need, and the excess is cast out through their roots into the surrounding soil and break down into protons and electrons. Plant-e’s system uses electrodes in the soil to await the breakdown of this plant waste, thus conducting electricity.”

While the current experiments near Amsterdam explore possibilities for urban uses, the real boon come be in remote locations where there is a great deal of plant material growing wild but no electrical grid, ultimately bringing power to the 25% of the world’s population that has never lived with it before. Even in problematic areas with pollution or contamination the dangers posed to humans will not, of course, translate to the power still able to be generated by area plants in browfields sites.

More about the company and what they are working on: “Plant-e develops products in which living plants generate electricity. The technology enables us to produce electricity with living plants at practically every site where plants can grow. The technology is based on natural processes and is safe for both the plant, and its environment. Plant-e is currently working on three types of products, the Plant-e World, the Plant-e Green Electricity Roof and the Plant-e Tube system.”

The post Power Plants: Dutch Harvesting Energy from Live Greenery first appeared on Gajitz.